Lasers, Broadband Wireless Hookups
Speed Data Around Lower Manhattan

By

Dennis K. Berman Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

Updated Oct. 3, 2001 12:01 a.m. ET

Mike Brady doesn't know what to make of the two humming contraptions now peering through windows at Merrill Lynch & Co. offices near the Hudson River in New York City. "They look like searchlights on small refrigerators," jokes Mr. Brady, Merrill's first vice president for global network services.

In reality, the devices are a part of a system of invisible lasers transmitting data for over 2,000 people from two Merrill...